Matenadaran

Matenadaran

Coordinates: 40°11′31″N 44°31′16″E / 40.19207°N 44.52113°E / 40.19207; 44.52113

Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts (Matenadaran)

The Matenadaran Institute building in Yerevan
Established March 3, 1959
Location 53 Mesrop Mashots Avenue,
Yerevan, Armenia
Type Art museum, repository
Director Hrachya Tamrazyan
Curator Gevork Ter-Vartanian
Website www.matenadaran.am

The Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts (Armenian: Մեսրոպ Մաշտոցի անվան հին ձեռագրերի ինստիտուտ Mesrop Mashtots'i anvan hin dzeṙagreri institut), commonly referred to as the Matenadaran (Armenian: Մատենադարան), is an ancient manuscript repository located in Yerevan, Armenia. It holds one of the world's richest depositories of medieval manuscripts and books which span a broad range of subjects, including history, philosophy, medicine, literature, art history and cosmography in Armenian and many other languages.

Contents

History

The earliest mention of the term Matenadaran, which means "repository of manuscripts" in Armenian, was recorded in the writings of the fifth century A.D. historian Ghazar Parpetsi, who noted the existence of a repository in Echmiadzin, where Greek and Armenian language texts were kept.[1] After that, however, the sources remain silent on its status. In 1441, the Matenadaran was moved from Sis, the capital of the former Cilician Kingdom of Armenia, to Echmiadzin and stored in nearby monasteries.[1]

In the course of the centuries following the dissolution of the Bagratuni Kingdom of Armenia in 1045, thousands of manuscripts were destroyed by the Turkic-Mongol invasions. According to the account given by Stepanos Orbelian, the Seljuk Turks were responsible for the burning of over 10,000 Armenian manuscripts in Baghaberd in 1170.[1] As a result of Armenia being a constant battleground between two major powers, the Matenadaran in Echmiadzin was pillaged several times, the last of which, took place in 1804.[1] Eastern Armenia's incorporation into the Russian Empire in the first third of the 19th century provided a more stable climate for the preservation of the remaining manuscripts. Thus, "a new era started for the Echmiadzin Matenadaran. The Armenian cultural workers procured new manuscripts and put them in order with more confidence."[2] Whereas in 1828 the curators of the Matenadaran catalogued a collection of only 1,809 manuscripts, in 1914, the collection had increased to 4,660 manuscripts.[1] At the outbreak of World War I, all the manuscripts were sent to Moscow for safekeeping and were kept there for the duration of the war.

Founding

A row of steps near the entrance leading to the upper floor of the Matenadaran.

On December 17, 1920, the collection of books and manuscripts held at the headquarters of the Armenian Apostolic Church at Echmiatsin was confiscated by the Bolsheviks. In a decree signed by Aleksandr Myasnikyan on March 6, 1922, the manuscripts which had been sent to Moscow were returned to Armenia. Combined with other collections, it was declared a property of the state on December 17, 1929. In 1939, the collection was moved to Yerevan and stored at the Aleksandr Myasnikyan State Library. Finally, on March 3, 1959, the Council of Ministers of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic voted in support of the establishment of the Matenadaran to maintain and house the manuscripts in a new building, and in 1962 it was named after Saint Mesrop Mashtots, the creator of the Armenian alphabet. In 1954, Armenian academician Levon Khachikyan was appointed as the Matenadaran's director.

The Matenadaran was designed by architect Mark Grigoryan. Located slightly north of the city's center at the foot of a small hill, construction of the Matenadaran began in 1945 and ended in 1957. The exterior was constructed of basalt but parts of the interior were made of other materials such as marble.[1] In the 1960s, the statues of historical Armenian scholars, Toros Roslin, Grigor Tatevatsi, Anania Shirakatsi, Movses Khorenatsi, Mkhitar Gosh and Frik, were sculpted and placed on the left and right wings of the building's exterior. The statues of Mesrop Mashots and his pupil are located below the terrace where the main building stands.

On May 14, 2009, upon the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Matenadaran, Armenian state and religious officials conducted the groundbreaking ceremony of the construction of a research institute being built adjacent to the Matenadaran. It is expected that construction of the building will be completed by September 2011.[3]

Objectives

The Matenadaran's main objectives are first and foremost the 1) preservation, restoration, and reproduction of the manuscripts; 2) their procurement; 3) the organization and cataloging of Armenian manuscripts; and 4) the distribution and publication of particularly historically significant Armenian manuscripts in languages asides from Armenian.[1] In 1941, it began publishing its official periodical, Banber Matenadarani (The Matenadaran Herald) which are accompanied with Russian and French abstracts.

Matenadaran collection

An illumination (MS No. 197) from the Matenadaran Gospel (1287).

The Matenadaran is in possession of a collection of nearly 17,000 manuscripts and 30,000 other documents which cover a wide array of subjects such as historiography, geography, philosophy, grammar, art history, medicine and science.[4] In the first decades of Soviet rule, its collection was largely drawn from manuscripts stored in ecclesiastical structures in Vaspurakan and Taron, in schools, monasteries and churches in Armenia and the rest of the Soviet Union (such as those located in New Nakhichevan and the Nersisyan Seminary in Tbilisi), the Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages in Moscow, from the Armenian Apostolic Church's Primacy in Tabriz, the village of Darashamb in Iran, as well as the personal collections given by private donors.[1] In addition to the Matenadaran's Armenian manuscripts, there is a vast collection of historical documents numbering over 2,000 in languages such as Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Japanese and Russian.[5] The Mashtots Matenadaran Ancient Manuscripts Collection was inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme Register in 1997 in recognition of its world significance. [6]

Armenian

The Armenian collection at the Matenadaran is abundantly rich in manuscripts dealing in all fields of the humanities, but particularly historiography and philosophy. The writings of classical and medieval historians Movses Khorenatsi, Yeghishe and Aristakes Lastivertsi are preserved here, as are the legal, philosophical and theological writings of other notable Armenian figures. The preserved writings of Grigor Narekatsi and Nerses Shnorhali at the Matenadaran form the cornerstone of medieval Armenian literature.[7]

The Armenian collection is also composed of 2,500 Armenian illuminated manuscripts, which include such prominent examples as the Echmiadzin Gospel (989) and the Mugni Gospels (1060). Another prominent manuscript in the collection is a 632 page, 80 lb. calendar made out of calf skin, which dates back to the 15th century. The calendar was found by two Armenian women in an Armenian monastery in the Ottoman Empire during World War I, and because it was found to be too heavy to be carried, it was split into two: one half was wrapped in a cloth and buried, while the second half was taken to Georgia. A couple years later, a Polish officer found the first half and sold it to an officer in Baku. It eventually was brought to Armenia and the two halves were finally reattached together.[8]

Statues

Following table is the list of the statues of Matenadaran.

Statue Image Year Sculptor
Anania Shirakatsi Anania Shirakatsi.jpg 1963 Grigor Badalyan
Movses Khorenatsi Movses Khorenatsi Matenadaran.jpg 1965 Yerem Vardanyan
Toros Roslin TorosRoslin statue.jpg 1967 Arsham Shahinyan
Grigor Tatevatsi Grigor Tatevatsi.jpg 1967 Adibeg Grigoryan
Mkhitar Gosh Mkhitar Gosh.jpg 1967 Ghukas Chubaryan
Frik Frik02.jpg 1967 Suren Ghazaryan
Mesrop Mashtots Matenadaran Armenian alphabet.jpg 1967 Ghukas Chubaryan

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h (Armenian) Chookaszian, Babken L. and Levon Zoryan. «Մատենադարան» (Matenadaran). Soviet Armenian Encyclopedia. vol. vii. Yerevan, Armenian SSR: Armenian Academy of Sciences, 1981, pp. 284-286.
  2. ^ Anon. "The History of Matenadaran." Virtual Matenadaran. Accessed April 27, 2009.
  3. ^ Hakobyan, Sona. "Groundbreaking ceremony for a new building of Matenadaran." Radiolur. May 14, 2009. Accessed May 15, 2009.
  4. ^ Ritter, Lawrence. "The Matenadaran, from copyist monks to the digital age." UNESCO. № 5, May 24, 2007. Accessed May 3, 2009.
  5. ^ Anon. "Scientific Research Institute of Old Manuscripts Matenadaran after St. Mesrop Mashtotz." International Exhibition of Calligraphy. Accessed May 15, 2009.
  6. ^ "Mashtots Matenadaran ancient manuscripts collection". UNESCO Memory of the World Programme. 2008-05-16. http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=22636&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html. Retrieved 2009-12-11. 
  7. ^ Anon. "The Heritage: Literature." Virtual Matenadaran. Accessed May 15, 2009.
  8. ^ Chahin, Mack (2001). The Kingdom of Armenia. London: RoutledgeCurzon. p. 226. ISBN 0-7007-1452-9. 

Further reading

  • (Armenian) Abgaryan, Gevork V. Մատենադարան (Matenadaran). Yerevan: Armenian State Publishing House, 1962.

External links


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